Part 5 (2/2)
I well remember the first wedding which took place at ”New Rush.” It must have been in the summer of 1871. Close to my dwelling an enormous circus tent had been pitched, and this was hired for the occasion. A dance was held in the evening, but it ended in disaster, for a heavy thunderstorm broke, with violent wind, and the tent collapsed on the guests. Had a torrential rain not been falling a horrible catastrophe might have occurred, for the reason that the festive scene was lit with paraffin lamps. However, the canvas was so completely soaked that it could not ignite. But the dancers were held, p.r.o.ne on the ground, by the weight of the sodden material for quite a long time, and the ladies afforded a sorry spectacle as they were hauled out, one by one, by their rescuers. The name of the bridegroom was Cooper. I was destined to meet him at Pretoria a few years afterwards under very extraordinary circ.u.mstances. The episode will be related in due course.
A well-known man at Du Toit's Pan in the early days was ”Old Moore.” I forget what his profession was. Moore was quite sixty years of age, and was exceedingly corpulent; nevertheless, he was amorous to a degree.
There was a remarkably pretty barmaid at Benning and Martin's bar, and with her Moore fell in love. This circ.u.mstance was a source of great amus.e.m.e.nt to the local gilded youth. A plot was concocted, the lady consenting to take part in it.
A certain D approached Moore and persuaded him that it was only fear of her employers on the part of the damsel that prevented her receiving his addresses more kindly, but that if an elopement could be arranged she would be willing to accompany him. At the same time the manner of the fair one altered; she met her admirer's gaze with a disingenuously languis.h.i.+ng eye, she pressed his hand at meeting and at parting, she replied to his frequent letters in fervent if ungrammatical terms. Old Moore was in the seventh heaven of delighted antic.i.p.ation.
D acted the part of mutual friend. The details of the elopement were duly arranged; it was to take place on the following Sat.u.r.day night, after the bar had closed. The lady's absence would thus not be noticed, the bar being closed on Sunday. By Monday the lovers would be over the Boshof Hills and far away across the wide plains of the Orange Free State. Old Moore acquiesced ecstatically, and engaged, at a very heavy cost, a cart with a spanking team of horses.
At the specified time, 12.30 a.m. on Sunday, the equipage stood ready at the appointed spot. Soon a cloaked figure, heavily veiled, was seen to approach with faltering steps, leaning on the arm of the mutual friend. The latter whispered to the impatient lover that the lady felt her position keenly, and begged that she might be left to herself for a time until her feelings became composed. Shrinkingly and in silence she climbed into the cart. Moore followed, and a start was made along the Boshof road.
The first stopping-place was at a wayside hotel a few miles out. Here Moore alighted for the purpose of obtaining some refreshment. On returning to the cart he was astonished to find that his companion had so far recovered from her nervousness as to be able to alight as well.
She was standing in the road. A full moon, appropriate to the occasion in more senses than one, was s.h.i.+ning. Feeling that the time had arrived when he might a.s.sume the privileges of a lover, Moore approached and attempted to slip an arm around his charmer's waist. To his astonishment, however, she lifted up her skirts and began to dance a ”can-can” in the road. It then became apparent that her legs were clothed in trousers. The lady was at home in bed; she had been personated by a graceless young cub whose stature was about the same as hers.
The morning market at ”New Rush” used to be crowded by wagons loaded with game. Most of this was shot on the flats beyond the Boshof Hills that range which is visible, about ten miles to the north-eastward, from Kimberley. I have seen hundreds of springbucks sold for a s.h.i.+lling apiece; blesbucks and wildebeeste for half a crown. The tails of the latter were in great demand for use as ”chowries” wherewith to keep off the flies. I have seen a pound of fresh b.u.t.ter sold for seventeen and sixpence, a dish of peas for thirty s.h.i.+llings, and a head of cabbage for thirty five. The latter prices were, of course, quite exceptional.
Shortly after the summer of 1871 set in, I, in common with many others, went down with enteric fever. Doctors were plentiful enough, but there was no hospital, and nurses were unknown. However, with the help of a sound const.i.tution I managed to keep alive on a diet of black coffee and roster koek administered by our Hottentot, David. My most painful recollections of that horrible time are connected with the plague of flies. These gave one no rest, night or day, for at night the slightest movement of the canvas set them buzzing. Better men than I died in every direction. I got the notion that I, too, would inevitably die unless I could manage to get away, so by an effort of will I crawled out of bed and took a pa.s.sage in the coach for Queenstown.
I collapsed a few hours after starting, but the other pa.s.sengers were very kind. The coach was so arranged that they sat facing each other in a double row, so they made a couch for me with rugs laid on their knees, and on this I rested. I reached Queenstown more dead than alive, but a few days of rest there picked me up, and I managed to survive the post-cart journey to King William's Town.
A few weeks at home, followed by a trip to the seaside near the Tshalumna Mouth, completed my recovery. No sooner was I well than an overpowering desire to return to the diamond-fields took possession of me. A military rummage-sale was held at King William's Town, and at this I noticed a ”condemned” commissariat wagon, which seemed (barring that it wanted a coat of paint) to have nothing whatever the matter with it. It was knocked down to me for 5, and I spent 8 on having it repaired and painted, and in providing the necessary tackle. This wagon was the best wagon of its kind I have ever owned or traveled in. What caused it to be cla.s.sed as ”condemned” was a problem none but a military man could hope to solve. I also purchased eight strong oxen.
One day when strolling along one of the King William's Town streets I gained a sense that something large and familiar was approaching.
Memory began to stir; yes it was Toby's mouth expanded into Toby's wholesale smile, and with Toby's long-lost self behind it. He had grown into a man in the interval since the conflagration and his flight. At that time the plays of Shakespeare were the only serious literature I had read. Unbidden, the song of the Page to Mariana which in some freakish fas.h.i.+on I had always connected with Toby's physiognomy tripped from my tongue
”Take, O, take those lips away, That so sweetly were forsworn.”
Toby was fortunately disengaged, so we struck a bargain on the spot. He agreed to accompany me back to the diamond-fields as driver or leader of my team, as occasion might demand. I next sought around for something to take with me in the way of trade something that would ensure profit. I eventually decided upon onions. Colossal varieties of this wholesome but malodorous vegetable were grown by the German farmers in the vicinity, and were to be purchased at a reasonable rate.
I obtained twenty full sackfuls, piled them on my wagon, and started.
My cargo smelt to heaven but what of that? I could always, except in the rare event of rain, sleep well to windward. Nevertheless my nose suffered great distress during the course of that journey. But the circ.u.mstance that I realized 400 per cent, profit on my venture consoled me.
I had also acquired a sporting Snider carbine and four hundred cartridges. This weapon was the worst but one of all the many kickers I discharged during the years in which most of my spare time was devoted to killing game. The exception was an elephant gun which I used some years afterwards, and which made my nose bleed every time I discharged it. After firing ten shots from my vicious little Snider my shoulder would turn black and blue. But it could drive a bullet straight, as many springbucks on the plains of the Orange Free State had good cause to know.
It had been arranged that at Kimberley I was to be the guest, for a time, of Major Drury, formerly of the Cape Mounted Riflemen. I fancy that Major Drury must at the time have been on leave, for when I met him years afterwards he was in an Indian cavalry regiment. He belonged to a ”mess” at what was known as the ”West End.” The members of this mess were camped together on a rise a few hundred yards from the western end of the mine, in the middle of an immense, straggling city of galvanized iron and canvas.
It was when Major Drury's guest that I first met Cecil John Rhodes.
Major Drury, Dr. Thorne (formerly of Queenstown), Mr. George Paton (who afterwards represented Barkly West in Parliament), Mr. H. C. Becher (subsequently well known in Hatton Garden), Mr. Rhodes and the latter's brother, Herbert Rhodes, all belonged to this mess. Soon after my arrival came Frank Rhodes, a bright-faced lad of eighteen, but who looked considerably younger. He had pa.s.sed the necessary examinations and was awaiting a nomination to the army. I have never met any one possessing such charm of manner as did Frank Rhodes at this period. He was, I fancy, a year or so younger than his brother Cecil.
Herbert Rhodes, the eldest brother, was a tall, lean, hatchet-faced man of, I should say, about twenty seven. Although sparely built his strength was considerable, and he was a splendid boxer. Cecil Rhodes was long and loose limbed, with blue eyes, ruddy complexion, and light, curly hair. He was, I think, some three or four years my senior. The Rhodes brothers occupied a large tent stretched over a skeleton framework and measuring about sixteen by eighteen feet. I fancy the site of our camp was the spot known afterwards as ”St. Augustines,”
where a mine was subsequently opened.
Within a few yards of the mess tent were camped Norman Garstin and his partner ”Tommy” Townsend. Garstin has since become noted as a painter.
He is, or recently was, the patriarch of the artist colony at Newlyn.
Although Garstin and Townsend did not belong to the Drury Rhodes mess, they were very intimate with the members thereof. After the completion of my term as Major Drury's guest, during which I slept in my wagon, I pitched a tent a few yards away, and messed for a time with Garstin and his partner. Soon afterwards the original mess was broken up and reorganized. Several members left and others took their places. Among the latter were Garstin and I. Another member was Hugh McLeod, who is, I fancy, still living at Kimberley. I struck my tent and went to live with the Rhodes brothers in theirs.
Everything connected with any phase in the life of a man such as Cecil John Rhodes is necessarily of interest, so I will endeavor to recall what I can of our mutual relations. I received several kindly favors at his hands, but we never became really intimate. He was even then somewhat intolerant in discussion. While Rhodes was already a man in mind and body, I was still a boy, and an ignorant, self-opinionated, argumentative one at that. Moreover, I was given to practical joking, and I played off one practical joke upon Cecil Rhodes of which I am ashamed to this day. When we met, after not having seen each other for nearly a quarter of a century, I felt sure he still remembered this (to me) discreditable episode. However, with Frank Rhodes, whose age was nearer mine, I was more in sympathy. We were, as a matter of fact, intimate friends the whole of the period upwards of a year during which we dwelt together. Herbert Rhodes was generally away on some adventure or another. He appeared to be one of those men to whom constant change was an imperative necessity.
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